The Story of Rice and Dewi Sri (Cerita Padi dan Dewi Sri)

Once, Batara Guru, the Lord of Gods, was building himself a new palace in heaven. He sent word to all the gods in heaven that each must bring a big stone for the foundation of the palace. Everyone agreed to obey the command except the Snake God.

When the Messenger God came to him, the Snake God was sitting sadly and said: “As you can see, I have neither arms nor legs. How could I carry a stone?” As he spoke, three large teardrops rolled down of his cheeks. When the teardrops feel to the ground, they turned into three white eggs. “Take those eggs to the Lord of Gods and tell him exactly what happened,” the Messenger God told the Snake God.

So, the Snake God set off for the royal palace holding the three eggs carefully in his mouth. On his way, he met the Great Eagle. “Where are you going, Snake God?” asked the Great Eagle. However the Snake God’s mouth was so full of eggs that he could not answer. The Great Eagle repeated his question twice more and, getting no answer, became very angry. He started pecking the Snake God on the head. This hurt so much that the Snake God gave two loud cries, and each time he opened his mouth one of the eggs fell out.

As the eggs hit the ground, they broke open and from one egg came a piglet and from another one came a rat. The two are bad because they damage rice in the rice field and hillside terraces.

The Snake God was sorry he had lost the two eggs, but by good luck one still remained safe in his mouth. He brought this last egg to the Lord of Gods. As he arrived at the palace, he told everything and kneeled: “Forgive me Lord of Gods, I only can give you this egg.” The Lord of Gods ordered him to keep the egg until it hatched and then to bring him whatever came out of it.

From day to day, the egg was taken care by the Snake God. Finally, one day, the egg broke open and out of it came a beautiful baby girl. The Snake God hurried to take the baby to the Lords of Gods, who adopted the baby as his own daughter and named her Dewi Sri. She was brought up as a princess in the royal palace with all of the loving care that a daughter of Lord of Gods should have.

As the years passed, Dewi Sri grew up to be a lovely young lady. She was gentle and kindhearted as she was beautiful, and everyone who knew her loved her. The Lord of Gods himself showed her so much affection that the other gods began to fear he might want to marry her. The law said that no father could marry his daughter, not even if he was a god and she was only his adopted daughter. The gods feared that if this law was broken, the whole kingdom would be ruined. So they met secretly and decided that Dewi Sri must be killed. This decision filled them with sadness, but they thought this was the only way to save the kingdom.

Thus, one day, the gods put poison in a piece of Dewi Sri’s favorite fruit and gave it to her. Straight away after she eated the fruit she fell sick. Day by day she grew weaker and weaker, and finally she died. It was just as though the slender stalk of a young flower had gradually wilted and falled to the ground. Dewi Sri’s body was burried with royal ceremony, just beside a beautiful triple-roofed pagoda, and a royal servant was left to guard the grave and to water it daily so that flowers would grow around it.

Later on, from the grave there appeared a strange kind of plant that no one had ever seen before. This was the heavenly plant now called rice. When the Lord of Gods saw this miracle, he told the royal servant to take the rice seeds down to earth and give them to the king of the land called Pajajaran. “Tell the king,” he said, “that the seeds are a gift from me. Let his people plant them and take good care of them including saving them from the piglets and rats, so that no one need ever go hungry again, for rice is the daily staple.”

The king of Pajajaran was very happy to receive the Batara Guru’s special gift. His people received seeds and planted them both in paddy fields and on hillside terraces. They learned how to harvest the plants and how to ground them. Then a goddess from heaven came down to earth and taught all the young girls how to cook the rice and serve it in many delicious ways. The people of Pajajaran lived in peace and happiness, never lacked of foods.